This is an amazingly delicious and fairly easy layer cake you can have all year around not just birthdays! It’s rather decadent and I won’t pretend it’s healthy but sometimes you need that kind of cake right? It’s adapted from the recipe by Christina Tosi of Momofoku Milk Bar fame and has a wonderful balance of flavours and textures with just the right amount of salt complementing the sugar so overall the cake doesn’t taste overly sweet. The colourful buttery sponge is well-structured and brushed with a milk and vanilla soak, the frosting is delightfully soft and light contrasting beautifully with the moist crunchy cookie crumbs nestling inside and adorning the cake. The colourful sprinkles add that pretty magical touch. My version is a little smaller and discreetely gluten-free – you wouldn’t even notice it is but your slice should be more digestible. The caster sugar’s golden unrefined and there’s a lesser amount of maple syrup to replace the sugar in the birthday crumbs. As usual use standard flour and sugar if you prefer. The layering system is so relaxing, eliminating any need for piping skills. As Tosi explains on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, cakes should be all about flavours and the magic when you contemplate wonderful messy layers with childlike wonder. My current taste tester (aka friend) and I happily agree this is our very favourite cake these days. There’s a reason people go crazy about Momofoku cakes and if you make this signature Birthday Cake you’ll see why! 🙂

Birthday layer cake

RECIPE

Christina Tosi’s original recipe is in her Milk bar book or at the official milk bar website: birthday cake (in both cups and grammes); My cake has the same quantities but a smaller diametre (14cm and not 15cm), lemon juice instead of citric acid in the frosting, maple syrup in the cookie crumb so it’s less sweet and Doves Farm self-raising glutenfree flour. Both times I’ve made this cake it’s been problem-free but my sponge batter didn’t double in size or become almost white as described in the original recipe. The first time it rose a little but this took 30 minutes on the standmixer (other bloggers mention it takes a while) and the second time it almost didn’t rise at all and I gave up after 45 minutes – maybe the hot humid kitchen didn’t help. I continued with the recipe regardless and both times the cake worked fine and rose nicely in the oven – yay for baking powder!

Here’s an earlier prototype (left photo) plus the latest cake and a slice for you…

Then with the birthday crumbs and sponge left over from this recipe you can make Tosi’s very easy birthday truffles, posted on the blog earlier this year. Really yummy portable powerballs of flavour! A friend had one in early June and still mentions them fondly. 🙂

But let’s make the cake first…

Timings (approximate)

Make birthday crumb previous day or Day 1 (10 mins work + 25-40 mins baking)

It feels wrong to use Crisco vegetable shortening but it works so well for a light delicious frosting (a healthier substitute could be vegetable/vegan margarine).

The rainbow sprinkles(like these) should be good-quality and decent-sized so they don’t lose their colour or melt. Yes they’re colourful and probably not part of a paleo diet but they’re very pretty and I think our bodies can cope with the occasional funfetti. 😉 Otherwise there are always chocolate sprinkles.

Healthier cookie crumb

25g/2 tbsp light brown sugar

170g/1 and 1/3 cups glutenfree flour mix (add more later if needed)

1/2 tsp (2g) baking powder, optionally gluten free

1/2 tsp (2g) fine sea salt

80g/4 tbsp pure maple syrup

1 tsp (4-5g) clear vanilla extract and

1 tsp (5g) pure vanilla extract

40g/2tbsp grapeseed oil (or light olive/vegetable oil)

20g/2 tbsp rainbow sprinkles

Please draw in the baking powder (1/2 tsp) next to the light brown sugar for step 1 – I’ll be replacing this illustration with the corrected one soon.

Use around 2/3 (about 135g) of the crumb for the cake then eat the remaining 1/3 or make birthday truffles or confetti cookies (recipe at the Serious Eats website) or see Milk Bar book.

Freeze overnight (12 hours) then the next day whip off the acetate and defrost in the fridge at least 3 hours before eating. The beauty of this cake is it’s supposed to look a bit messy. Can’t go too wrong really…?

Birthday layer cake

Storing and eating the cake

If not eating the whole cake within 3 or 4 days cut slices from the still frozen cake (after the 12 hours overnight) and store in airtight tupperware up to 1 month or so in the freezer. Freezes really well. Just defrost 3 hours in the fridge before eating. Keeps in the fridge up to 3 or 4 days, maybe more. P.S. Having slices in the freezer is a guaranteed source of happiness – my friend from the birthday cake picnic has been whatsapping me to reserve their share of frozen slices. Lol.

Slices for the picnic and freezer!

Cake love

Let’s have some now… yum yum!

Like many other Momofoku cake enthusiasts I simply adore this birthday layer cake. It clearly isn’t necessary to wait for a birthday when you can celebrate just having this cake in front of you. 🙂

Birthday layer cake

So farewell again dear reader and I’ll just wish you an early or belated happy birthday now! May you have a lovely year ahead with lots of yummy cakes! 🙂 Lili x

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Baking on Sundays with my French mum was a lovely part of my childhood. Later I experimented with baking books or internet recipes and did the pâtisserie course at Le Cordon Bleu Paris. Still trying out new recipes and inventing cakes with influences from all around the world, including some healthier ones. Yes, love cakes!!! Hope you'll love them too and have fun baking. :)

The Momofoku birthday cake is on my baking bucket list. I’m always so jealous of everyone else I see make it–I need to just buy the acetate strips and cake pan so I can make it already. This look great Lili 🙂

Lovely stuff you guys made from the blog!

A beautiful orange and rum fruitcake-cake Anglais fruitcake made by Dookes! Looks moist and delicious! Dookes’ comments: ‘seriously good!’ and ‘fantastico’!! You can find the guest post recipe at http://wp.me/p2sQo3-US And Dookes’ cake report is at https://hogriderdookes.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/lilis-biker-cake-made-and-tasted/ on his Hogrider Dookes blog.

A stunning Gâteau Moka by Kate in Cornwall. The piping is wonderful and she was very pleased with it. She also mentions the cake was delish! :)

Scrumptious orange & rum fruitcake-cake Anglais by Stéphanie in Tahiti ‘This cake is just delicious :) I brought one in the office today and it just vanished in a few minutes! Every one loved it :)’ she reports. Lovely local rum, vanilla, honey!

A delicious seed and nut loaf made by Claudette in London. She reports ‘cannot stop eating it … it is really delicious’ And she used more pumpkin than sunflower seeds and a little chestnut flour too.

A fantastic slice of Apple tarte tatin with Chinese 5 spices and Tamarind by Claudette, aka mum! :) It was very nice and using maple syrup is ‘genius’ she reports. The Pink Lady apples used were ‘lovely, juicy and firm’ and cooked on the ring a little over 10 mins. Plus the pastry browned quite quickly so was covered with foil towards the end.

Lovely brioche rolls made by Annette in New Zealand! ‘They turned out really well thanks, my boys certainly enjoyed them, all gone now!’ she reports. But be careful – she noticed that if you don’t use invert sugar or honey but just caster sugar, you’ll need to add a little extra water.

A fabulous Raspberry charlotte by Kate! Loads of raspberries and great sponge finger casing! The assembly part was actually really easy! and ‘it tasted amazing’ she says, adding it ‘will definitely become a regular pudding in our household!’

Yummy wholemeal spelt croissants by Dookes. Very well-shaped and nicely risen too! ‘For a first attempt I have to say I’m pretty pleased. They certainly pass the taste test’ says Dookes.

Extremely tasty-looking Lamingtons by Annette in New Zealand. Lovely and moist even without cream inside, she reports. So tempting piled up on that pretty plate. Yum!

What I made at the Cordon Bleu in Paris

Dacquoise

Viennoiserie – croissants, brioches, pains au chocolat

Tartelettes au chocolat and à l’orange

Savoury petits fours with inverted puff pastry

Dark chocolates – truffles and almond paste chocolates

Le Fraisier

Raspberry and anis macarons

Plating a rapsberry and anis macaron with raspberry coulis and anis cream